Skip to main content
Skip to main menu Skip to spotlight region Skip to secondary region Skip to UGA region Skip to Tertiary region Skip to Quaternary region Skip to unit footer

Slideshow

Tags: evolution

Holly Bik, assistant professor in the University of Georgia Franklin College of Arts and Science department of marine sciences with a joint appointment in UGA’s Institute of Bioinformatics, has received a grant from the National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) to study the biodiversity, evolution, and ecology of free-living marine nematodes and their host-associated microbiomes. The five-year, $1…
How do sunflowers grow in the desert? Wild sunflowers display extensive variation, both between and within species, and scientists have now reported that variation is preserved by blocks of “supergenes” that permit adaptation to different environments. Such evolutionary changes are normally broken apart across generations of mating. Considered one of the world’s most important oilseed crops, this finding should improve breeding of the…
‘The Slow Moon Climbs' by Susan Mattern, Distinguished Research Professor of History, ponders the evolutionary benefit that renders women’s lives so valuable post-reproduction: She opens her book with an extraordinary example: that of Hoelun, the mother of the notorious Genghis Khan. Hoelun accomplished far more than simply giving birth to the notorious emperor of the Mongol Empire. Khan has more than 35 million direct male-line…
Franklin faculty contributed popular press articles about issues of the day and had their research reported around the world. A sample from over the past month: The grimy history of the Attorney General’s Office, associate professor of history Stephen Mihm in his regular column at Bloomberg Here’s your answer when someone asks “How can it be so cold if there’s global warming?”  Georgia Athletic Association…
Gene sequences for more than 1,100 plant species have been released by an international consortium of nearly 200 plant scientists, the culmination of a nine-year research project. The One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative (1KP) is a global collaboration to examine the diversification of plant species, genes and genomes across the more than 1 billion-year history of green plants dating back to the ancestors of flowering…
Researchers in the UGA department of plant biology have published the first genetic linkage map for what has long-been an object of human fascination: plants that have evolved the capacity to capture and digest insects. Lead author Russell Malmberg explains: "We normally think of plants as being eaten by animals, but a small number of plant species have reversed this and are able to capture and digest insects. These…
A globally important food crop as well as a staple at every* American Thanksgiving table, Sweetpotato (Ipomoea batatas) has widely recognized potential to alleviate hunger, vitamin A deficiency, and poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Biofortification with pro-vitamin A-rich orange-fleshed sweetpotato (OFSP) in SSA has led to millions of Africans being spared the devastating effects of vitamin A deficiency, a main cause of…
Millions of years ago, before humans became fully bipedal, ancestral hominins used stones to break bones and nuts, probably while standing upright. A new study from the Primate Cognition and Behavior Lab in the department of psychology published today by the Royal Society journal Proceedings B documents how contemporary bearded capuchin monkeys likewise use stones to break nuts: [B]ecause the fossil record is…
Columns features the publication of a new book written by a Franklin faclty member on one of the most ubiquitous substances found around the world, new and dear to Georgians but crucial to everything from earthenware to building construction and especially its geological role in the 'Critcal Zone': Written by UGA faculty member Paul Schroeder, Clays in the Critical Zone considers clay science in the context of the Critical Zone, the…
Recent research co-authored by department of genetics Ph.D. candidate Michelle Ziadie focuses on resources available for undergraduate evolution instructors. From the abstract of the paper: Evolution is a unifying theory in biology and is challenging for undergraduates to learn. An instructor’s ability to help students learn is influenced by pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which is topic-specific knowledge of teaching and learning…
A striking new study published in the journal Cell shows details how ancient microbes that thrive in some of the world’s most extreme environments and modern-day humans have more in common than meets the eye—namely, they both respire and conserve energy using a similar molecular mechanism, one that has adapted to changing environmental conditions over billions of years: "Nature is really good at finding molecules that work and then modifying…
On August 21, WUGA-TV will broadcast a new 30-minute documentary on medical students in Athens, produced and edited by graduate students from the Grady College: The 30-minute documentary-"Changes and Transitions: Georgia's New Medical Partnership," compiled by a team of health and medical journalism students from the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, is a peek behind the scenes into the lives of the medical students and their…

Support Franklin College

We appreciate your financial support. Your gift is important to us and helps support critical opportunities for students and faculty alike, including lectures, travel support, and any number of educational events that augment the classroom experience. Click here to learn more about giving.